If someone saves your life, you try to express your gratitude in every way: with a gesture, a “thank you” or by returning the favor in one way or another. However, things are decidedly more complicated when you owe your life to a plant that is thousands of kilometers away.
Being a nurse, I have known for years that many life-saving drugs are derived from plants and animals from all over the globe. I never thought, however, that one day I would have to rely on the bark of a rare Asian tree to survive.
Nine years ago I was diagnosed with appendix cancer and given only a few months to live. As a mother of two children, I could not accept such a prognosis at that time. Luckily I met a doctor who wanted to help me fight: I underwent a major abdominal operation and months of chemotherapy.
I am now cured, mainly thanks to irinotecan, a drug that helps block the growth of cancer cells. The principle of this drug is extracted from a tree, with banana-shaped pods, which is found only in China and Tibet and which is rightly called the "Chinese tree of happiness" (Camptotheca). However, this tree and many other potential sources of healing may soon disappear as they are endangered.
I lived many years beyond my life expectancy and many other people like me are alive and well thanks to other drugs derived from natural sources: from those to lower cholesterol to antimalarials.
However, around the world many of the wild areas that are home to plants and animals that are potential sources of numerous new medicines are disappearing. A forest razed in what may seem like a remote corner of the earth can result in crucial consequences for someone living here in the United States.
Plants are unable to move to escape danger. That's why they use a complex chemical arsenal to protect themselves from insects, diseases and any other type of threat. Many of these chemical compounds, in addition to defending plants, can potentially also protect us humans. In fact, half of the medicines developed in the last 25 years, and 70 percent of the drugs currently used to treat cancer, derive from nature.
Medicines can also be obtained from many animal species, some of which are in danger of extinction. For example, exenatide, a diabetes drug marketed under the name “Byetta,” is synthesized from a compound found in the saliva of the Heloderma suspectum (or Gila monster), a lizard native to Mexico. Heart transplant recipients often take lisinopril, derived from the venom of a Brazilian rattlesnake.
However, it is possible that in forty years, the habitats of these plants and animals will disappear. We lose 13 million hectares of forests every year (an area equal to that of Greece). Scientists estimate that two-thirds of all species could become threatened with extinction by the end of this century. But the researchers were only able to examine 1 percent of rainforest plants, looking for organic compounds that could benefit human health. If we don't act quickly, we could forever lose natural sources that can cure cancer, arthritis, HIV, diabetes, heart disease and countless other diseases.
Most species are found in the poorest nations on earth. That's why last month, with other cancer survivors from across the United States, I went to Washington to support a new congressional initiative to strengthen US environmental conservation efforts. The Global Conservation Act, unveiled early last spring, would establish a national strategy to help the government intervene to protect natural areas in developing countries that are too poor to do it on their own.
I am grateful for the “Chinese Tree of Happiness” because it helped save my life and allowed me to watch my two daughters grow up. Speaking up for nature, and all the medical treatments it offers us, is simply my way of saying “Thank you.”
Carolyn Langlie-Lesnik is a registered nurse and survived appendix cancer nine years ago. She is the founder and editor of the website “ The Appendix Cancer Connection ”. She lives in Crown Park, Indiana and works with cancer survivors to foster connections between international environmental protection and the treatment of life-threatening diseases.)
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